The Giving God, and an Ancestor of the Rus

Dazhbog is a sun-god and giver of good things among the East Slavs; his name is generally read as the giving god, from an imperative meaning give plus the word bog, god, an etymology that is broadly accepted and that itself carries much of what is known of him. He is named among the idols that Prince Vladimir of Kiev is said to have set up before his conversion, in the year 980, according to the Primary Chronicle, and a gloss in the Hypatian Chronicle calls him the sun-king and a son of Svarog.

The twelfth-century epic Tale of Igor's Campaign twice calls the Rus the grandchildren of Dazhbog, making him a divine ancestor of the people as well as a sky-deity, though that poem's authenticity has been debated since its only manuscript burned in Moscow in 1812. A southern Slavic Dabog survives in Serbian folklore as a ruler of the world below. As with most Slavic gods, the sources are few and late, and much popular detail is modern reconstruction.